School Pride: NBC Debuts New Reality Series; Cancel or Keep It?

by Trevor Kimball, October 19, 2010

On Friday at 8pm, NBC debuted a new reality series called School Pride. How does this one stack up? — a quick success or another candidate for quick cancellation?

School Pride tells the stories of communities who come together to renovate broken and aging public schools. The series follows parents, teachers, and students as they roll up their sleeves to make some positive changes. Hosts are Susie Castillo, Jacob Soboroff, Tom Stroup, and Kym Whitley.

In its first airing, School Pride attracted a meager 0.9 rating in the 18-49 demographic and 2.901 million total viewers. It landed in third place in the timeslot, tying with a repeat of No Ordinary Family on ABC.

The networks have lower expectations for Friday nights and reality programming but this is still a terrible showing. In the prized demo, it’s about half of what Dateline attracted a week earlier in the same timeslot.

Eight episodes of School Pride have been produced. NBC may let them all air but, based on this quantity of ratings, there doesn’t seem like much reason for the network to order a second season.

I hope you don’t mean what you said. If the school wasn’t what they showed then why when the helicopter flys above the school and cameras actually let you see the inside and outside how could you say it is terrible. I hope you think twice about why became a teacher, I also hope you read my input on why they need to keep the show.

It is a shame that what should be most important in life is attracting such a small audience. It is about the children. I think if you found a way to have young famous people come and take turns being on the shows, or maybe famous sports people you could add to the audience. Star power brings an audience.

I was pretty disturbed by this show. While children and teachers all deserve to learn and work in beautiful, new facilities with the latest curriculum materials and technology, there was no mention of parental involvement. The show attempted to point fingers at the current flaws in schools but the biggest flaws are the environments in which children are being raised. I would have liked to see what happens on the inside of their homes. THIS is the challenge faced in America today. Fifty years ago, students came to school with respect and an awareness of the fact that their job… Read more »

This show needs to stay and networks need to start looking at other ways to see what demographics are really watching their shows. I don’t have cable or satelite t.v. and I know that there are many others like me out there. A lot of us watch shows online through sites like Hulu and Netflix.

I loved this show. I am an education major at the moment and hope to have my degree and be working in a year and a half. People need to see what the budget cuts have done to our schools and see the students that it is affecting. The government continues to talk about NCLB and how we need to keep up with other countries but how can we do this when they keep cutting back? It’s a beautiful thing to see the educators and communities on this show that truly care. I hope they keep this show and by… Read more »

I am a teacher in Las Vegas, Nevada. Anything we can do to raise awareness of our failing school systems is vital. School Pride does just that. Not only does it give our educators hope, it shows America that we must pull together for a systemic change and give all children the necessary tools to learn.

This goes beyond a mere TV show. Americans should forced to watch this show. After stumbling across an episode of SP, I immediately contacted my old elementary school to see if they needed any help. I then began researching my new town of residence to find underpriveledged schools. With TV airwaves so cluttered with useless hours of spoiled, overpriveleged cheaters, liars and thieves, how will necessary shows like this reach the public consciousness? How can I help???

Keep the show! As a community volunteer myself, I know that the average person can make a huge difference in their community. All they need is a little direction for how to get involved. This show can become the blueprint for communities all over this country -to take a stand and make some good things happen. One show can be a great inspiration and some communities need that inspiration badly. We all know that good teachers already provide supplies with their own money but they shouldn’t HAVE to! They barely get paid enough as it is. I don’t think the… Read more »